NTTA LAWSUIT - Texas Tolls have STEEP fines - NTTA fines & violations

Do you drive on Toll Roads in North Texas? Have you gotten a massive fine for being 45 days late in payment? If so, then read on.

I live in North Texas, and it's a sprawling area to be sure. We build outward here because we've got the land to do it. Everyone drives from their house to their commercial, industrial or recreational destination, sometimes it can be quite far.

With 25% population growth in North Texas in the past ten years, there has been considerable stress on everything from housing, social services, police and fire, and of course our road system.

The roads are clogged heavily, sometimes for several hours each day.

Build More Roads! How to get traffic flowing again? The simple solution is to build more roads. Well, how will they be paid for? Since vehicles get better gas mileage these days, we're using a lot les gasoline. That means that states are collecting less tax money, and have big holes in their road budgets. Someone's got to pay for the new construction.

Enter Toll Roads! So the solution lately is to build toll roads that cost the state next to nothing, people don't see an added gasoline tax, and drivers simply pay the toll through their toll tag (credit card billed) or they get a bill sent in the mail that they pay by sending a check or paying online. Seems like the perfect solution, but looking at the long-term costs (these roads never get paid off - you will pay for tolls forever) tells a different story.

What if you forget to pay the bill? Putting beside the argument for or against toll roads. Let's say that you are an infrequent driver of the NTTA toll roads in Texas, and you get a bill for something like $10.00, which is an aggregate of 3 months of driving the tolls. Let's say you forget to pay the bill. It's not the money, it's just that there are other things on the top of your mind, you forget to pay it and you let it go for another month or two. What can you expect? A 5% penalty? Maybe a 10% penalty?

How about a 5,900% penalty on the original toll? Thanks NTTA!

Yeah, that's right. Each toll cost varies (I guess), anywhere from $0.42 to $3.72 from a recent invoice that I'm looking at. It's hard to understand the invoice (it's my opinion that the NTTA does a TERRIBLE job explaining things) - so I'm not certain what each line item charge is for.

Non-payment after 45 days means that your original $0.42 toll gets hit with a $25.00 Admin. Fee. That 59 times more than the original toll. EXCUSE ME??? How's that reasonable or ethical?

My original invoice was for $10.80 and the first notice that I got was a Violation Invoice (I called them and I guess two were sent previously - I never saw them). They applied $150.00 in fees ($25 per toll x 6 tolls) bringing my $10.80 invoice up to $160.80. No, they did not apply a $25 admin fee to the invoice, they applied it to each toll on the invoice.

Very Excessive. I'm sorry, but that's excessive. That's 15 times what the original tolls cost. If someone misses their house payment by 45 days, let's say it's $1,000, they don't get hit with a $15,000 penalty, it's more likely closer to about $150. We have laws against such outrageous fees.

If I miss a credit card payment, I may have to pay a $30 late-payment fee for that month, but I don't have to pay $30 for each and every item that appears on my credit card receipt. I find it outrageous that the NTTA would apply a per-toll $25.00 admin fee.

Toll Tag drivers watch out! I read a story from last year in which a driver's bank issued him a new credit card, so his toll tag credit card on file was no longer valid. His fees? $2,000! Read about it here.

NTTA Toll Road Boycot. I understand the argument for and against all of these issues, but it seems to me that these fees are so excessive that the NTTA is simply trying to take advantage of people. These fines are absurd, border on tyrany and should not be paid.

I am firmly committed to a total boycot of all of the NTTA toll roads in North Texas until these fines and administrative fees can be reviewed and a more reasonable late-payment fee can be implemented. By the way, that's probably more like a 10% penalty, not a 6,000% penalty.

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Just read another article on this issue. The author, Michael Lindenberger, from the Dallas Morning News, makes some very good points. He likens these tolls to the NTTA "winning the lottery" and more than make up for the cost of the "administrative fees" which he claims are under $10.00 overall.

It looks like the state statue that autorizes the NTTA to collect fees to collect tolls really only allow them to collect the reasonable amount to cover the costs of collection. So I think these are not valid administrative fees and they would lose in court if they were pressed on this.

Class Action Lawsuit against the NTAA anyone?

"The department may impose and collect the administrative fee, so as to recover the cost of collecting the unpaid toll, not to exceed $100." Sec. 228.055(b)

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Note: This was written when all tolls were collected at a booth, so $100 would cover the cost of someone smashing through the toll barrier and multiple toll offenses were not going to happen.

I travel down to Florida several times a year and they have what they call a SunPass, it attaches to your windsheld and lets you go through the toll plaza without stopping. I have it attached to my credit card and I prepay $25.00 at a time. When $25.00 is used up they add another $25.00. I love it, very simple, no fines and its great on holiday's because you don't have to wait in the pay lanes.

Texas and NTTA have the Toll Tag, same concept. I don't want one. I go through tolls so rarely that I don't want the hassle of keeping up with it, plus I don't want to spend the $40 for it.

The main issue is really about the huge profits the NTTA is trying to score off insignificant tolls. They are allowed by law to recover the collection fees associated with getting paid for the tolls, which are about $10 per invoice. They are trying to make hundreds or thousands of dollars on these invoices, which is almost all profit.

George Worth and his daughter, Tina Chandler, didn't pay their NTTA Zip Cash bill on time. They were prepared to pay late fees, but they weren't prepared for what they saw. They received four invoices for about $66 in tolls. Their late fees came to $10 dollars, but the administrative fees totaled an unbelievable $1,845.

I dont care how far out of my way I have to go or how much longer it takes to get there I never travel on the NTTA Toll roads, if you dig a little deeper you may find that the NTTA sold most of these roads to private foreign companies and the NTTA handles billing and management to keep things legal.
Contrary to what they say many of the roads were built with public funds prior to being sold, basically the public is paying for them twice.
Dallas County makes a large amount of profit off of these roads too.
The basic idea of charging a toll to pay for and maintain the roads has been thrown out the door in favor of making a profit off of them.

Wow talk about corruption and sadly a boycott really wouldnt work since alot of people have to take these roads to work, much like a gasoline boycott wouldnt work since we all need some amount of fuel to get to work... We dont have toll roads here in MN... Happily.. now driving to Ga from MN i had to use them in IL... I thought it was alright when the cost was 45cents a car, in 2004. by the time i was out in 2009, it was up to $1.50 per car.. Talk about stupid.

I dont care how far out of my way I have to go or how much longer it takes to get there I never travel on the NTTA Toll roads, if you dig a little deeper you may find that the NTTA sold most of these roads to private foreign companies and the NTTA handles billing and management to keep things legal.
Contrary to what they say many of the roads were built with public funds prior to being sold, basically the public is paying for them twice.
Dallas County makes a large amount of profit off of these roads too.
The basic idea of charging a toll to pay for and maintain the roads has been thrown out the door in favor of making a profit off of them.

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I've heard a little bit about that, it's happened in other states where they don't have the funds to do road repair, so they sell off to the highest bidder and it becomes a toll road. I'd like to do more reading on that if someone can provide some links to articles on it.